


Returns

by Unovis



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alley Sex, Fish Puns, M/M, Remix, bar story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:52:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unovis/pseuds/Unovis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little fishy fun; a little alley sex.<br/>Another bar story re-post, a remix of a story by MacGeorge from 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Turns](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/30507) by MacGeorge. 



***

“Your turn, Methos,” Duncan whispered.

Be careful what you wish for.

Methos stood there, staring, looking uncommonly like a possum treed. He’d lowered his stiletto in a shaking hand, its tip dark in the orange light of the street that turned night hideously bright. Blood on the blade, blood on Duncan’s throat from a prick quickly come and gone. “I’d like that,” Duncan had said. “I fuck you. You fuck me,” and he stepped into the knife. “We could take turns.”

“Very funny. Good night, MacLeod.”

“You said one fuck in an alley wasn’t enough for us to be an ‘us.’ What would it take? Two fucks in an alley?”

“Excuse me?”

“For us to be an ‘us’? What would it take?”

***

That was how it played backwards. Forwards, it read no better: Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod offered Methos the Eldest his turn in the barrel, fuck and be fucked, to forge a bond; damn and be damned if he didn’t. Oh, he sounded like he meant it. He’d just taken a Quickening of a powerful odd sort, and many a man would have forced his prong through the bunghole in a brandy keg for relief of it. He’d have slid it to a squid and then turned his bottom up for the bottlenose behind, let alone buried himself in the sweet slicked ass of Methos offered in an alley. But it wasn’t so much the need for the cinch round his stick that was odd—it was this ‘us’ business, it was the questioning, it was the plea for more meaning that twisted the night’s tale. Someone could regret this in the morning. Someone could wake up to the questions’ answers, once they’d sucked the dum-dum down to its secret, sticky center.

Consider the first mistake, at the rising of the moon.

What Duncan had wanted this night was a drink, stiff and plain, a glass at Joe’s in friendly company. He was without his car, down by the docks. It was a short walk to the dojo, but he opted for the longer hike to the bar, to breathe the night air and ventilate his mind. Up a block, over, down seven blocks, left, and a hole in the pavement blocked his way. He stopped short, startled from his route. He saw the moon reflected in a puddle in the hole, round as a plate, as it shouldn’t have been, that early. He turned his head, he looked back over his shoulder at the skyline instead of straight up as he surely was taught, looked at the moon over his left shoulder, like his mother must have warned him never to do.

A pain in his neck from the angle and a crackle of Presence to his rear and a stink that sizzled his nose hairs, three bad things, came at once unexpected and unwelcome in the dark.

When he thought about it later, his drink finally in his hand, he thought he hadn’t aimed to kill. The twisted little man who’d stepped out of the shadows and into the street gibbered and sang like a drunkard, with a reek like a rotting whale. Not someone Duncan wanted to fight, not something he wanted inside him, or even on his sword, kept so clean and honed.

“I’m Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod,” he said, leaving his sword sheathed, “and I have no business with you.”

“Oh, you have, you have,” sang the man, “or why would I be here?” He jigged and skipped, splash into the moon, making Duncan jump. “Your turn: ask and you’ll learn a secret.”

“I’m not in the mood for riddles.” Duncan’s neck twinged. “Go away now and there’s no harm done.”

“Not done, but due. Ask what do I want,” said the little man, fishing under his pea jacket.

There was a sword under there, or Duncan would be damned. A ripe gust flapped his way. Around the man or past him or retracing his tracks, Duncan would expose his back. He loosened his sword. “What do you want?” Duncan said, trying not to inhale.

“Wrong question!” crowed the gnome, darting forward. He pulled a cargo hook from his jacket in a wild swing, and was spitted on Duncan’s sword in half a breath. In the next, his head went spinning in the moon.

Damned for sure.

***

The other one was as bad that night, but slower with it. Methos lounged, lapping up beer at the bar, running his tongue over his teeth, around his mind, against the lie of his fur, ruffling it up, then laying it flat again. His ears twitched when MacLeod came through the door. His hair crackled at the cloud of energy surrounding the dark, broad shape, his nose raised at his scent. Where had Mac been, whom had he killed, and what was that air clinging to his coat? He waited, expecting the man to come to him. And when he didn’t, curious, cautious, he slipped in next to him at the bar. “Anybody I know?” Methos asked, slippery soft.

The sailor wasn’t settling in Duncan right, his Quickening felt prickly and cold as a fish sliding the wrong way down. He hadn’t wanted to kill the reeking little man, but he’d been startled, the hook to his kneecap stung, and his breath…“Probably not,” he answered, and sent good spirits after bad. The inner fish flip-flopped.

“Wanna talk about it?” asked Methos, edging closer.

 _Wrong question_ , thought Duncan, grimly. “No.”

Joe mimed a heave-ho; Methos turned a blind eye, contrary, drawn to Duncan’s black and pungent mood. Duncan saw Joe as well from the corner of his eye and shrugged. Damned if he’d be taken out. He was here for his drink and the warmth of human company, and Methos could go fuck…could grab him, he could and had. Methos had sunk fingers on his elbow like fire tongs, a pivot that he turned around, a heat that sank to the bone, and Duncan let himself be piloted to a table by the wall. Drink it under or fuck it out were the choices for a bad Quickening, experience taught them both. Methos slid away and sidled back carrying a bottle of scotch. Duncan looked at him with one eye, then the other, considering. Flip-flop, went the fish.

Methos poured and watched Duncan drink. Duncan drank and thought, under Methos's stroking eye. What he’d wanted was drink and human warmth and a little peace. A little piece, a big piece, now—drink wasn’t laying the weird to rest. Joe frowned at him while Methos gabbed on, eyes narrow and bright, taking Duncan in, breathing Duncan in…and his scrutiny was raising the hairs on his subject’s arms. Maybe raising other things as well. From Duncan’s divided sight, Methos was looking less like company and more and more like prey.

He drained his glass and thumped it down. “This was a bad idea. See you around.” He shouldered his way to the door, feeling Methos at his back, knowing Methos at his back, all but hearing Methos's protest at his leaving and his loss. Well now. Well now. His head buzzed, heavy under his scalp. His breastbone pressed in on his breath, on the electric cladding round his heart. He wanted. He lacked. He was going to put something against a wall now, or through it, and here came Methos up behind. He turned. He caught him in his sights and asked: "What do you want, Methos?" The wrong question, and Duncan pressed in and asked again: "What do you want?" Methos dropped his gaze. When he raised his eyes, Duncan saw the moon in them. He turned around and walked away.

***

The air was cold. The water in it put a ring around the lights. The moon was high as it would get. The gravel crunched under Methos's boots, the sound crumbled around Mac's ears, and he struck. He grabbed the pest, he grasped him by his front and pinned him to the alley wall, hard against the cement, hard and split between the legs with a propping knee, with a thigh pressed to the seam of him. He gave him no quarter, no space to talk. He struck the mark, he pressed his mouth to the mobile lips and licked his way inside. So sharp, so salty-sweet. He sucked there, seeking ease. He pressed in silence, he pushed the climbing hands away, he ground his thigh against whatever sliding purchase he could find, as Methos gave, pocketed his knife and unbuttoned and opened himself. Eager for it.

It went. Duncan jerked the trousers off Methos his friend and wrestled him round to face the wall; he stripped down the heavy denim, he threw aside the coat, he saw the pale moon of his target, split in the middle, ripe and waiting for his push. He stuck a minute, standing there, himself unzipped and stiff pricked as a bowsprit... Be careful what you wish for. A spell, a charm, a ward, he wanted, instinctively. He fished in his pocket and came up with a rubber safe. It was snug and cold, unrolled around his staff, and shone like fish guts in the dark. "Shut up and hold still," he snarled to Methos's protest. He planted a hand on the gleaming hip, he pressed open the waiting eye with his thumb, and so guided, he plundered in. Oh, tight, tight, and wonderfully wrapped.

“I take it that was what you wanted?" he asked under the uncaring moon, and Methos answered "Yes, yes, oh yes," surprise. His hips jerked impatiently, the pressure raged behind. Pressing his forehead against Methos's neck, his palms against the rough, cold wall, he slammed into the infuriating strangeness with abandon, over and over, hard, until he came.

Astonishing. Then, ordinary. Not enough. Was the answer right? Was the question wrong? Call it the second mistake, at any rate, closely followed by the third.

Fucked until he wobbled on his feet, the wall spread with his shot seed, and his jeans shackling his knees, Methos was unsatisfied. He scratched about the matter, the protection that Duncan, privately, found less charming than he'd hoped, the how and why of being taken unawares. Clothed and buttoned up and turned toward the bar, he raised his back and hissed, and in answer—Duncan kissed him.

That was a lover's kiss, that was. Duncan was an expert in the art. Methos knew heat when it hit him in the teeth. And third mistake's the charm.

***

Outside, then inside, then outside, then, questioning all the while. Turn and turn about? Fight or fuck it out? Ask and you'll learn a secret.

Ask, What do I want?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remix created for the LJ community Highlander Remix in 2005, of "Turns" by MacGeorge, which was itself a story written for a bar story challenge I made that year.  
> Re: remixing, the opening part of this story takes MacG's ending and reverses the exchange between Methos and MacLeod. The progression of events, once Mac enters the bar, and some of the dialogue are the same. It twists and turns back on itself. The POV is third omniscient, leaning into the curves.  
> Read the original; it's so fine and much hotter than mine.


End file.
